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THE LARGEST KNOWN CASED WALL MAP OF BRITISH INDIA PRIOR TO THE GREAT TRIGONOMETRICAL SURVEY— A MONUMENTAL CARTOGRAPHIC TOUR DE FORCE

A monumental and highly important large-scale map of India in four volumes, dissected and linen-backed, issued in original leather-bound cases with light blue silk edging and original hand colour. Comprising:
• Sheets 2, 3, 5, and 6: 36 sections, each 132 x 197 cm when opened
• Sheets 7, 9, and... THE LARGEST KNOWN CASED WALL MAP OF BRITISH INDIA PRIOR TO THE GREAT TRIGONOMETRICAL SURVEY— A MONUMENTAL CARTOGRAPHIC TOUR DE FORCE

A monumental and highly important large-scale map of India in four volumes, dissected and linen-backed, issued in original leather-bound cases with light blue silk edging and original hand colour. Comprising:
• Sheets 2, 3, 5, and 6: 36 sections, each 132 x 197 cm when opened
• Sheets 7, 9, and part of 8: 29 sections + 3 blanks, measuring 171 x 132 cm
• Sheets 1 and 4: 12 sections, measuring 131 x 49.5 cm
• Part of sheet 8: 6 sections, measuring 65.5 x 65 cm
• Each map with original blue silk edging, linen backing, and small printed keys and handwritten parchment tabs on the verso marked ‘North Part,’ ‘Peninsula,’ and ‘Supplement.’

Aaron Arrowsmith’s Improved Map of India (1816–1822) is the largest and most comprehensive general map of the region created during the early 19th century. Issued in four volumes and dissected into linen-backed folding sheets, the map was the culmination of over half a century of cartographic progress, consolidating the finest contemporary sources to replace earlier efforts by D'Anville and Rennell. The scale, technical precision, and formal dedication of the work to the Honourable Court of Directors of the East India Company underline its dual function as both scientific instrument and imperial symbol.

The map draws extensively from the surveys of James Rennell—the first Surveyor General of Bengal—as well as road-route surveys conducted by East India Company military engineers during various campaigns. Arrowsmith also acknowledged, in his published note, a host of high-ranking informants and contributors, including the Duke of Wellington, Sir John Malcolm, General Kyd, and most significantly, Colonel Colin Mackenzie, whose Map of Mysore formed a key underpinning to Arrowsmith’s revisions.

In both form and content, the map exemplifies the Enlightenment ambition to render the world knowable through systematic observation and rational analysis. It is typographically distinguished by engraved copperplate detail and finely executed original wash colouring. Its enormous size—spanning over 2.5 metres in assembled width—renders it not only a technical achievement but also a monumental artefact of British imperial cartography. The physical scale of the object gestures to the extent of British territorial and political ambition on the subcontinent.

Contemporaries and later scholars have recognised the map’s significance. As noted by Google Arts & Culture in its digitisation of the Kalakriti Collection: “This gargantuan map occupies a special place in the history of the cartography of India... It represents the apex of the Enlightenment Era Cartography of the subcontinent and is one of the finest maps of any subject produced during the early 19th Century.”

At the crossroads of cartography and colonial ambition, case maps of India such as the present lot emerged as indispensable tools of governance, war, and exploration in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Designed to be portable, durable, and exacting, these folding, linen-backed maps—often housed in bespoke slipcases or portfolios—offered the East India Company and British military officers unprecedented command over the subcontinent’s shifting political and geographical landscape.

Painstakingly compiled from field surveys, traveller accounts, and astronomical observations, the works of Aaron Arrowsmith, James Rennell, and later John Walker represent the golden age of imperial cartography. Their multi-sheet masterpieces, colour-outlined and engraved with extraordinary precision, translated territorial uncertainty into administrative clarity. Whether detailing the rivers of Bengal, the passes of the Himalayas, or the frontiers of newly annexed provinces, these maps were at once practical instruments and monuments of imperial vision.

Today, surviving examples—especially those retaining their original bindings, slipcases, or manuscript notations—are highly sought-after rarities. They stand as enduring records not only of the land as it was understood but also of the lens through which it was ruled.

Today, Arrowsmith’s Improved Map of India stands as an enduring testament to the intersection of empire, science, and visual culture—one of the most important geographical documents of colonial India and an exceptional artefact of its political imagination.

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